iGATE joins fray to buy majority stake in Satyam

New York, March 13 (IANS) Nasdaq listed IT and outsourcing solutions major iGATE Friday announced its interest in acquiring a 51-percent stake in scam-hit Indian firm Satyam Computer Services by registering for a global auction. This brings up to four the number of firms interested in buying a majority stake in Satyam, whose founder Ramalinga Raju confessed to a Rs.74 billion ($1.5 billion) fraud in January.

“We are now expecting to receive from Satyam the latest financial statements, including those for the quarter ended December 2008 and the months of January and February 2009, and updated position on liabilities and potential liabilities of the company,” said iGATE in a press statement.

“In the event of iGATE not receiving this information immediately, it has no option but to withdraw its expression of interest,” the statement added.

iGATE, which has its Indian headquarters in Bangalore, is led by former Infosys’ worldwide head of sales and marketing Phaneesh Murthy.

Thursday was the last day for registering interest in the bidding. With iGATE declaring its interest in the Hyderabad based computer giant, the total number of known contenders in the global bid has gone up to four.

The others are infrastructure major Larsen and Toubro (L&T), Mahindra and Mahindra’s IT arm Tech Mahindra and the B.K. Modi controlled Spice Group.

L&T already holds about 12 percent equity stake in Satyam.

The Hinduja Group, which had expressed interest earlier, has reportedly withdrawn from the bid.